


Nostalgia

by ruthedotcom



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Future, Memory Loss, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 12:52:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3411308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruthedotcom/pseuds/ruthedotcom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has to be a prank.... right?</p><p>Memory loss AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nostalgia

**Author's Note:**

> Originally a [prompt ask](http://ruthedotcom.tumblr.com/post/110011511812) on Tumblr.

Jemma Simmons wakes up to an unfamiliar sound.

It’s loud, and resounding, and… echoing? Is that—is it coming from a _radio_? It’s certainly seems to be white noise, static-y and off pitch. But it’s not a song… it’s… _crying_. Something— _someone_ is crying through the radio.

She sits up quickly, and then immediately falls back onto the pillow behind her, head throbbing and room spinning, even with her eyes shut. The sound is not making it any better. She groans and rubs at the array of colors swirling under her closed eyelids.

But that is not even the most unfamiliar sound she hears. Something stirs to her left, and the blankets around her waist are pulled in that direction. None of that is as alarming as the voice that follows, low and deep when it says, “I’ll get her.” She snaps her eyes open, just in time to see a male figure in nothing but boxer briefs head towards an open door.

She screams.

“Jemma?” the male calls, and she sits up in an instant, her protesting headache no longer the most pressing problem, taking the covers with her and pulling them up to her neck. She hits the headboard of the bed with her back and feels herself start to panic—she can’t go anywhere, and he is coming towards her. In any other situation, she might have laughed at the picture in front of her; with one eye closed in obvious sleepiness, one hand flailing in front of him and reaching for her, he looks positively disheveled.

As it is, though, she has no idea who he is, and he’s suddenly in front of her, reaching for her face, even though she’s ducking under the covers. “Jem? You alright?” he says thickly. It’s… _Scottish_? “Is it your head? Do you want something—Here.” He leans over to the nightstand next to her, and picks up a glass of water and two tablets of what she assumes to be medicine. “I’ll be right back. Jemma?” he asks again, when she doesn’t move her hands to take what he’s holding out to her. He’s glancing at her like she’s gone mad, and she can’t fathom _why_ , seeing as he’s the one that’s shown up in her bedroom and all.

“What’s—where am I?”

He blinks at her, and then puts down the medication. “Home.”

She glances around, taking in her surroundings for the first time. This is definitely not home—not her parents’ house or the Academy. Her bed’s supposed to be against the wall, and the picture of her and her parents is supposed to be on the nightstand, and a periodic table poster over her desk. But all she finds is a large bed, a grey lamp, and a very concerned looking bloke staring at her.

It’s another thirty or so seconds before she finds her voice. “Um, I’m sorry, but… what?”

The bloke reaches out for her face again, and she instinctively ducks her head before he can touch her. Something flashes in his eyes—really, really bright blue—before he drops his hand and sits on the edge of the bed next to her.

“I think you’re a little confused, Jem,” he tells her, “you hit your head yesterday in the lab.”

The way he looks at her makes her head spin. “No, I didn’t,” she tells him, and she’s trying to keep her tone even. She can’t afford to go into shock right now, because she needs to stay calm and figure out what is happening. “I didn’t have lab yesterday.”

“What?” he asks this time, tilting his head to one side.

“I didn’t have lab yesterday,” she repeats, and her fingers are getting cramped for holding onto the covers so tightly and stiffly for so long. “I don’t have lab until tomorrow.”

He scrunches his eyes, and leans back, and there is something distinctively troubling about his face, something familiar about the way it looks when it’s calculating like that. He opens his mouth, and Jemma is anxious for his words, but whatever he says is masked by the sound of a wail through the radio again.

“I’ll be right back,” he says instead, standing to his feet and brushing sandy curls away from his face.

“Where are you going?” she asks impulsively. She’s not sure if she really cares where he’s headed or not, but she wants some answers from him about where she is.

“To get Rose,” he calls over his shoulder.

“Rose?”

He freezes in the doorway, turning back to her, where she still hasn’t moved. His mouth opens and closes a few times, before he finally gets out, “do you know who I am?”

She shakes her head. “No.” But that’s a lie; there is something very, very oddly familiar about him. “Maybe,” she amends.

This is apparently the wrong answer, however, because instead of explaining himself to her, he stares at her for another few seconds before shaking his head and then disappearing to some other part of… wherever this was.

It isn’t the Academy, she’s ruled out that much. But there must be some kind of way for her to deduct where she is, so she throws back the covers, aiming to get up and look out the window, only to pull them back the next instant, letting out a squeak. Jemma peeks down under the sheets at herself as she wills herself not to blush so severely; she _definitely_ didn’t go to bed in this blue t-shirt last night. She’s immediately grateful that she’s at least wearing knickers. _What is going on?_

The crying sound from before has ceased, however, and something tells her that her window of opportunity for snooping is closing. This time, though, when she tosses the blankets aside and stands up, she pulls down the shirt as far as it can go down her legs and is sorely disappointed when it barely covers her bum. She can’t remember anything about this place, let alone getting into this shirt, as soft and wonderfully scented as it is, so she feels slightly uncomfortable about wearing it.

She’s tiptoeing her way to the window on the other side of the room when a wall of pictures catches her eye. Ah ha! Evidence! She scurries over to the frames, hoping to see unknown faces (she never thought she’d be saying that), and she almost screams again when what she sees is… _her_.

Her face is smiling back at her all across the wall—there’s one where she has her arms around another girl her height, with long dark curly hair; another with her in what looks like a lab, bright green goggles on her face; a few with an older male and Chinese woman, and other various shots of her with the same people, over and over again. And the bloke with the familiar face and eyes, he’s here, too. In almost all the pictures, he’s there with his arm around her shoulder or waist; there’s one with them in graduation robes, another in front of what looks like a pyramid, and one where she’s wearing a white dress—

She doesn’t realize she’s leaning towards the wall until she hears a gurgle and she snaps back. He’s walking towards her, now, but his eyes are on the little child in his arms. Jemma is not ignorant enough to not see a connection—this place, these pictures, this blue shirt—but she doesn’t know how she can accept them. It’s impossible. None of this makes sense.

“What did you do yesterday?” he asks suddenly, bouncing the little girl in his arms.

Oh, good, something she knows the answer to. The words are out of her mouth before she consciously thinks about it. “Micro, Psych, and Chem. Oh, but not in that order. I had lunch before Chemistry, which was actually not the best idea, because I think I got something stuck in my teeth, and we were being assigned partners for the semester…” She stops talking, and her eyes go wide as a veil is lifted from a part of her brain. “I know who you are!” she says in a daze.

He looks up over the top of the baby’s head, his eyebrows raised. “Yeah?”

“Leopold Fitz!” she recalls, holding up her finger as the memory plays in her head. How could she forget, really, after that disaster of a class? “Fitz,” she restates, remembering how he’d corrected her sourly when she’d tried to call him by his given name.

Jemma knows she’s right by the sheer relief donning his face now. “Bloody hell, Jem, I thought something had—“

“Is this a prank?”

He stops, adjusting the child in his arms. “What’s that?”

“Is this—I mean, am I being pranked? Is this my freshman prank? I have to admit, this is _far_ more than I was expecting, with the pictures and everything—“ she gestures to the wall—“but it’s extremely impressive, all the same. Very convincing. I was properly shocked, so mission accomplished, I suppose. You can tell everyone to come out now. I would ask, though, that next time you don’t change my clothes without my permission, it’s not very—“

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” he blurts out, and his voice goes up an octave, and she shuts her mouth, because she can see something in his eyes that she can’t identify. He is over to her seconds later, and she’s frozen on the spot. The little child in his arms is looking at her with blue eyes that are slightly darker than his. “You really—“ he starts, but then shakes his head. “What year is it?” he asks then.

Jemma frowns at him. She is bewildered by his train of thought; usually she can read a person, learn to understand their thought process and often finish the thoughts for them, but he is all over the place, and his expressions are not helping. This has to be a prank. There is no other logical explanation as to why she is here. “2003,” she says swiftly, and she hopes her voice sounds more confident than she feels.

Fitz lets out a staggered breath, muttering incoherently before looking up at the ceiling. A trail of hair outlines his jaw that Jemma swears was not there yesterday. Neither were those cheekbones, come to think of it. He was all round faced and miserable, the last time she saw him, and now… She had to admit, there was a bit of her eyeing him and enjoying the view.

She shakes the thought from her head. _Focus, Jemma._

The toddler starts to fuss against his arm, reaching towards _her_ , so Fitz twists her in his arms and starts walking towards the bed. “Could you give me a minute? She’s restless.” He doesn’t wait for a response, and sits, plopping her down on his lap to face him. He starts to talk to her softly, cooing at her. Jemma feels so out of place, but she can’t help but melt at the look of pure adoration on his face at the same time. He is clearly smitten with that little girl.

“How old is she?” Jemma asks.

“Hmm?” he says, and then looks at her with a bright smile. “Almost a year and a half. Right, Rose? How old are you?” She holds up one finger, which he kisses. “Yeah, you know, baby girl.”

“Can she talk?”

“A little. She repeats things, mostly.” And he leans forward to kiss her cheek, grinning when she giggles. “You just like to repeat everything Mum and Dad say, don’t you? Especially bad words. Yeah, yeah, I’m looking at you, little monkey.”

“Monny,” Rose repeats in her little voice.

“Getting me in trouble when I’m already cross.”

“Coss.”

“She is so adorable,” Jemma breathes, and Fitz looks up, as if he’d forgotten about her.

“Takes after her mum,” he tells her, grinning, and Jemma knows exactly what he’s implying, so she blushes furiously, sure that she’d be matching the red shade of her pajamas—if she were wearing the right ones. Which reminds her… She tugs down on the shirt again with as much success as the first time.

“Fitz?” Her voice is quiet, cautious, but she already knows the answer she wants is not the one she’s going to get. Jemma Simmons is clever enough to make sense of just about anything she puts her mind to. She’s found enough evidence to form some sort of hypothesis now… It’s just that this hypothesis is mad, so completely impossible and farfetched, and she’s never felt sillier in her life. But here she is, with a room full of pictures of herself, and Leopold Fitz, who looks older than she remembers him, and a little toddler who clearly recognizes her.

“Fitz?” she tries again. This time he looks up at her, wearily. He must know where she is going, too, and he looks as excited to answer her as she is to receive it. “What year is it?” she finally gets out.

He opens his mouth, but Rose slides off his lap and onto the floor just then, turning to stand in between his legs where he sits at the edge of the bed. He steadies her for a moment, but she pushes his hand away and starts towards Jemma. “Mmmm,” she hums, holding out her little fingers. She takes a step and nearly topples over herself before Fitz snatches her up by the waist.

“Rose—Rosalind, no,” he chastises, standing to his feet as he captures her in his arms again. She fusses to the point of wailing, and he starts to shush her gently, swaying. He seems to be unaware that he’s heading towards her, but suddenly the two of them are standing in front of Jemma, and Rose stops stirring when she sees Jemma’s face. From this close up, Jemma can’t deny that that’s her nose and her lips, although those eyes and that curly hair is definitely not hers. But Rose is hers. She is, isn’t she? And his. Theirs.

“But—“ Jemma shakes her head, a little hysterical now. “You hate me! You wouldn’t say a single thing to me! I tried to be nice to you, and you kept scowling down at the desk. You completely ignored me when we were supposed to be working on the spread sheet together,” she rambles on, getting flustered. “You _hate_ me,” she repeats, and if she is sure of anything, it is that.

“I love you,” he counters with ease. Fitz says it with such conviction, like he can’t go on before she knows that. She reddens, stunned, unsure if he means at the point in time she’s talking about, or right now. Either is unbelievable. “I was really nervous and didn’t know what to say,” he explains. “I didn’t say anything for the next week, either, but eventually… it works out.”

The double meaning to his words does not escape her. The way he says it, though, makes her think it wasn’t as easy as that. She’s not sure what to make of it all.

The look in his eyes is both reassuring and seeking, and she feels so many different things right then, she can’t process anything. So she doesn’t, and she’s left feeling numb. The adrenaline is fading and the headache from earlier is making a slow return. She nods, looking anywhere but at the two of them, and suddenly she needs to sit down before she falls over. She steps over to the edge of the bed and sits, slowly and steadily, fully aware that she’s being watched.

Her mind is blank, and her fingers are cold as she twists them together in her lap. She sits there, taking in the sheer impossibility of it all. It doesn’t make sense.

She feels a shadow stand in front of her moment later. “Jemma?” he calls softly. “Are you… Do you need anything?”

She tilts her head up to him, and the concern on his face is so heartbreaking, she almost finds herself wanting to comfort him. “A reality check,” she says, and one side of his mouth quirks up, even as his eyes are still piercing.

She’s having an out of body experience, she finally decides; her mind whirls from all kinds of explanations, each less likely than the next. She tries to breathe in and out to keep from going hysterical. There is so much to take in, she doesn’t know where to start, or whether she _wants_ to start. But the more she sees, the more one possibility looks like the truth… it’s just not a truth she can easily wrap her mind around.

She scoots over on the bed, and he sits next to her with obvious caution, leaving a considerable amount of space between them. Rose is as persistent as ever, and starts calling for her as soon as she’s in reach. Fitz looks like he’s going to hold her back, but Jemma thinks the poor girl will continue to give him hell until she gets what she wants. “I’ll hold her,” she tells him, and she just barely twists to open her arms before Rose has plummeted into them.

“You have always been her favorite,” Fitz mutters in what she thinks he meant to be bitterly, but there is so much affection in his tone, she feels warmth spread through her. It is so strange, because on one hand, she has physical evidence of what they mean to each other, here in this time, but on the other, her mind is still _literally_ years back, where they do not get on at all. So she’s conflicted on how she’s supposed to react to him. She must love him, Jemma thinks. She, as in her of this time. She hopes she knows herself well enough to assume that future Jemma would not willingly commit to something as big as a baby with someone she doesn’t love.

She turns her attention to the toddler that’s standing on her thighs and holding onto her shoulder. Rose smiles at her so big and so adoringly, Jemma can’t help but return it. She mulls thoughts over in her head while she lets Rose tug on her hair. “Rosalind?”

“Uh,” Fitz rubs the back of his neck. “I mean, yeah. Rosalind after—“

“Rosalind Franklin,” she finishes, and a thrill shoots through her. That sounds like something she would do. “Was it my idea?”

He shrugs. “Mutual agreement, for the most part.”

“Where are we?”

He knows how to respond better this time. “At a SHIELD base.”

That catches Jemma’s attention. “We live at a base?”

Fitz scrunches up his face. “ _Technically_ , but not really. Yes, officially. But it’s been remodeled for living quarters, so we’re actually… on top of the base… It’s complicated.”

Jemma nods. This whole situation is complicated. “Are we—“ and she motions between them rather vaguely, trying to think of a word.

“Married?” he finishes, nodding, and she is blushing so hard, she can feel the heat radiating off her face. That was not what she’d been asking, but she doesn’t know why she expected him to understand her flamboyant hand motions. She’s not sure why she’s embarrassed. Maybe it has to do with the annoying part of her brain that is trying to explain why she’s in his shirt and holding his baby.

“No,” she stammers, “I mean are we agents, or…?”

“Yeah,” he nods, giving Rose one of his fingers to hold. “We’re the head of the Science Division.”

A shot of pride hits her. “Really?” she says gleefully. She’d made it to the top already?

He suddenly laughs, and she realizes it’s the first time she’s ever heard it. His whole face turns up and she tells herself not to stare, but she can’t help it when it feels like such an accomplishment to make him smile. “Yes, really,” he says knowingly. But she doesn’t let him embarrass her for being excited. She’s worked her whole life for this, so she’s earned it.

Or at least, she thinks. She can’t really remember. That stupid thought makes her frown again, and Fitz tenses. “What?” he asks hesitantly.

“Am I dreaming? Am I going to wake up any second now and find this is all a figment of my imagination?”

He frowns at her. “Jemma, I swear you’re not dreaming. This is not a joke or a prank. This is,” he shrugs, “well, this is our life.”

Jemma takes in his words as she looks around the room again, reevaluating the space with this new information. It looks the same as it did when she woke up, but now she’s taking in details. There’s a bookshelf by the window, and she can just make out thin little booklets with writing on the spine: _J. Simmons—07, 08, 09_. Science journals, she immediately thinks. On a dresser in the corner of the room are more pictures; the girl with the dark hair is there again, but with a fringe this time, and they’re holding a balloon with ’15 on it. Evidence of time is everywhere—pictures and certificates and things that look like they belong in a sci-fi movie.

And yet, with everything that looks new and unexplainable, it just seems so… her, too. Besides the pictures and things that have her name on it, there’s an odd familiarity to the place, and she can almost see traces of her handiwork in the way the furniture was set up and the purple wall color. She knows—she _knows_ —it doesn’t make sense, and that it’s highly likely that she is fabricating these feelings of belonging because she’s going into shock. But how can everything not make sense but fit together at the same time? She looks at the place, and it feels… like home.

As soon as she thinks those words, her entire body turns to ice, and she wants to cry. Because this isn’t her life. It’s not home. Home is the Academy, where she’s just a student on her way to graduating three years early. This is not her reality. Or maybe it is, but she doesn’t remember it? And she doesn’t know what makes her want to throw up more — the thought that she somehow fast forwarded through her already accelerated life to now, or that she’s simply forgotten everything. And if that’s the case… She doesn’t have a single memory of how she got here, and now she’s here, and it’s like she blinked her life away and missed all the wonderful parts. She doesn’t know who that girl in those pictures is, doesn’t remember why she’s Rosalind’s favorite, can’t even begin to fathom how she grows to love the lab partner that made her want to tear her hair out. She’s just… here.

Or is she? She doesn’t know. All she knows is that this seems so real, and it scares her. But there’s no other option. She’s here. Right now. Yesterday is years ago.

She turns to hand Rose to Fitz, and then stands to her feet.

“Jemma?” His voice is laced with worry and apprehension.

She takes a steadying breath and turns around to face him. She looks him right in the eye. “What year is it, Fitz?” she croaks out. He stiffens. “Fitz, please tell me.”

“2019,” he replies eventually, looking down at Rose. When he catches her gaze again after a moment, she almost wants to look away. She can’t imagine the look on her face that would make his lovely eyes look so downcast and troubled.

“I…” Jemma swallows. “I hit my head?” He nods. She does, too, wrapping her arms around herself. It’s another few seconds before she can get the next part out, mostly because she knows that as soon as she says it, she’s accepting it. And she doesn’t know what that means, exactly.

“I hit my head, and forgot two decades of my life?”


End file.
